Conclusions and Recommendations

Edward U. Condon

We believe that the existing record and the results of the Scientific
Study of Unidentified Flying Objects of the University of Colorado,
which are presented in detail in subsequent sections of this report,
support the conclusions and recommendations which follow.

As indicated by its title, the emphasis of this study has been on
attempting to learn from UFO reports anything that could be
considered as adding to scientific knowledge. Our general conclusion
is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years
that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the
record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further
extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the
expectation that science will be advanced thereby.

It has been argued that this lack of contribution to science is due
to the fact that very little scientific effort has been put on the
subject. We do not agree. We feel that the reason that there has been
very little scientific study of the subject is that those scientists
who are most directly concerned, astronomers, atmospheric physicists,
chemists, and psychologists, having had ample opportunity to look
into the matter, have individually decided that UFO phenomena do not
offer a fruitful field in which to look for major scientific
discoveries.

This conclusion is so important, and the public seems in general to
have so little understanding of how scientists work, that some more
comment on it seems desirable. Each person who sets out to make a
career of scientific research, chooses a general field of broad
specialization in which to acquire proficiency. Within that field he
looks for specific fields in which to work. To do this he keeps
abreast of the published scientific literature, attends scientific
meetings, where reports on current progress are given, and
energetically discusses his interests and those of his colleagues
both face-to-face and by

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correspondence with them. He is motivated by an active curiosity
about nature and by a personal desire to make a contribution to
science. He is constantly probing for error and incompleteness in the
efforts that have been made in his fields of interest, and looking
for new ideas about new ways to attack new problems. From this effort
he arrives at personal decisions as to where his own effort can be
most fruitful. These decisions are personal in the sense that he must
estimate his own intellectual limitations, and the limitations
inherent in the working situation in which he finds himself,
including limits on the support of his work, or his involvement with
other pre-existing scientific commitments. While individual errors of
judgment may arise, it is generally not true that all of the
scientists who are actively cultivating a given field of science are
wrong for very long.

Even conceding that the entire body of "official" science might be in
error for a time, we believe that there is no better way to correct
error than to give free reign to the ideas of individual scientists
to make decisions as to the directions in which scientific progress
is most likely to be made. For legal work sensible people seek an
attorney, and for medical treatment sensible people seek a qualified
physician. The nation's surest guarantee of scientific excellence is
to leave the decision-making process to the individual and collective
judgment of its scientists.

Scientists are no respecters of authority. Our conclusion that study
of UFO reports is not likely to advance science will not be
uncritically accepted by them. Nor should it be, nor do we wish it to
be. For scientists, it is our hope that the detailed analytical
presentation of what we were able to do, and of what we were unable
to do, will assist them in deciding whether or not they agree with
our conclusions. Our hope is that the details of this report will
help other scientists in seeing what the problems are and the
difficulties of coping with them.

If they agree with our conclusions, they will turn their valuable
attention and talents elsewhere. If they disagree it will be because

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our report has helped them reach a clear picture of wherein existing
studies are faulty or incomplete and thereby will have stimulated
ideas for more accurate studies. If they do get such ideas and can
formulate them clearly, we have no doubt that support will be
forthcoming to carry on with such clearly-defined, specific studies.
We think that such ideas for work should be supported.

Some readers may think that we have now wandered into a
contradiction. Earlier we said that we do not think study of UFO
reports is likely to be a fruitful direction of scientific advance;
now we have just said that persons with good ideas for specific
studies in this field should be supported. This is no contradiction.
Although we conclude after nearly two years of intensive study, that
we do not see any fruitful lines of advance from the study of UFO
reports, we believe that any scientist with adequate training and
credentials who does come up with a clearly defined, specific
proposal for study should be supported.

What we are saying here was said in a more general context nearly a
century ago by William Kingdon Clifford, a great English mathematical
physicist. In his "Aims and Instruments of Scientific Thought" he
expressed himself this way:

Remember, then, that [scientific thought] is the guide of action;
that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally
contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without
fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an
accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress
itself.

Just as individual scientists may make errors of judgment about
fruitful directions for scientific effort, so also any individual
administrator or committee which is charged with deciding on
financial support for research proposals may also make an error of
judgment. This possibility is minimized by the existence of parallel
channels, for consideration by more than one group, of proposals for
research

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projects. In the period since 1945, the federal government has
evolved flexible and effective machinery for giving careful
consideration to proposals from properly qualified scientists. What
to some may seem like duplicated machinery actually acts as a
safeguard against errors being made by some single official body.
Even so, some errors could be made but the hazard is reduced nearly
to zero.

Therefore we think that all of the agencies of the federal
government, and the private foundations as well, ought to be willing
to consider UFO research proposals along with the others submitted to
them on an open-minded, unprejudiced basis. While we do not think at
present that anything worthwhile is likely to come of such research
each individual case ought to be carefully considered on its own
merits.

This formulation carries with it the corollary that we do not think
that at this time the federal government ought to set up a major new
agency, as some have suggested, for the scientific study of UFOs.
This conclusion may not be true for all time. If, by the progress of
research based on new ideas in this field, it then appears worthwhile
to create such an agency, the decision to do so may be taken at that
time.

We find that there are important areas of atmospheric optics,
including radio wave propagation, and of atmospheric electricity in
which present knowledge is quite incomplete. These topics came to our
attention in connection with the interpretation of some UFO reports,
but they are also of fundamental scientific interest, and they are
relevant to practical problems related to the improvement of safety
of military and civilian flying.

Research efforts are being carried out in these areas by the
Department of Defense, the Environmental Science Services
Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
and by universities and nonprofit research organizations such as the
National Center for Atmospheric Research, whose work is sponsored by
the National Science Foundation. We commend these efforts. By no
means should our lack of

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enthusiasm for study of UFO reports as such be misconstrued as a
recommendation that these important related fields of scientific work
not be adequately supported in the future. In an era of major
development of air travel, of space exploration, and of military
aerospace activities, everything possible should be done to improve
our basic understanding of all atmospheric phenomena, and to improve
the training of astronauts and aircraft pilots in the recognition and
understanding of such phenomena.

As the reader of this report will readily judge, we have focussed
attention almost entirely on the physical sciences. This was in part
a matter of determining priorities and in part because we found
rather less than some persons may have expected in the way of
psychiatric problems related to belief in the reality of UFOs as
craft from remote galactic or intergalactic civilizations. We believe
that the rigorous study of the beliefs--unsupported by valid
evidence--held by individuals and even by some groups might prove of
scientific value to the social and behavioral sciences. There is no
implication here that individual or group psychopathology is a
principal area of study. Reports of UFOs offer interesting challenges
to the student of cognitive processes as they are affected by
individual and social variables. By this connection, we conclude that
a content-analysis of press and television coverage of UFO reports
might yield data of value both to the social scientist and the
communications specialist. The lack of such a study in the present
report is due to a judgment on our part that other areas of
investigation were of much higher priority. We do not suggest,
however, that the UFO phenomenon is, by its nature, more amenable to
study in these disciplines than in the physical sciences. On the
contrary, we conclude that the same specificity in proposed research
in these areas is as desirable as it is in the physical sciences.

The question remains as to what, if anything, the federal government
should do about the UFO reports it receives from the general public.
We are inclined to think that nothing should be done with them in the
expectation that they are going to contribute to the advance of
science.

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This question is inseparable from the question of the national
defense interest of these reports. The history of the past 21 years
has repeatedly led Air Force officers to the conclusion that none of
the things seen, or thought to have been seen, which pass by the name
of UFO reports, constituted any hazard or threat to national
security.

We felt that it was out of our province to attempt an independent
evaluation of this conclusion. We adopted the attitude that, without
attempting to assume the defense responsibility which is that of the
Air Force, if we came across any evidence whatever that seemed to us
to indicate a defense hazard we would call it to the attention of the
Air Force at once. We did not find any such evidence. We know of no
reason to question the finding of the Air Force that the whole class
of UFO reports so far considered does not pose a defense problem.

At the same time, however, the basis for reaching an opinion of this
kind is that such reports have been given attention, one by one, as
they are received. Had no attention whatever been given to any of
them, we would not be in a position to feel confident of this
conclusion. Therefore it seems that only so much attention to the
subject should be given as the Department of Defense deems to be
necessary strictly from a defense point of view. The level of effort
should not be raised because of arguments that the subject has
scientific importance, so far as present indications go.

It is our impression that the defense function could be performed
within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance
operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project
Blue Book, but this is a question for defense specialists rather than
research scientists.

It has been contended that the subject has been shrouded in official
secrecy. We conclude otherwise. We have no evidence of secrecy
concerning UFO reports. What has been miscalled secrecy has been no
more than an intelligent policy of delay in releasing data so that
the public does not become confused by premature publication of
incomplete studies of reports.

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The subject of UFOs has been widely misrepresented to the public by a
small number of individuals who have given sensationalized
presentations in writings and public lectures. So far as we can
judge, not many people have been misled by such irresponsible
behavior, but whatever effect there has been has been bad.

A related problem to which we wish to direct public attention is the
miseducation in our schools which arises from the fact that many
children are being allowed, if not actively encouraged, to devote
their science study time to the reading of UFO books and magazine
articles of the type referred to in the preceding paragraph. We feel
that children are educationally harmed by absorbing unsound and
erroneous material as if it were scientifically well founded. Such
study is harmful not merely because of the erroneous nature of the
material itself, but also because such study retards the development
of a critical faculty with regard to scientific evidence, which to
some degree ought to be part of the education of every American.

Therefore we strongly recommend that teachers refrain from giving
students credit for school work based on their reading of the
presently available UFO books and magazine articles. Teachers who
find their students strongly motivated in this direction should
attempt to channel their interests in the direction of serious study
of astronomy and meteorology, and in the direction of critical
analysis of arguments for fantastic propositions that are being
supported by appeals to fallacious reasoning or false data.

We hope that the results of our study will prove useful to scientists
and those responsible for the formation of public policy generally in
dealing with this problem which has now been with us for 21 years.